There is a
mixture of clouds in the sky at the
moment, but the sun is managing to
squeeze a few rays through a gap as I
write this. If the latest revision to
the forecast turns out to match reality
then there should be sunny spells for
every hour of daylight except for 3pm.
This morning I reckon it is closer to 9°
C than the predicted 10° C. By 2pm it
should be 13° C, and that could feel
nice in the sunny spells, although the
wind may be gusty enough to take the
edge off it. Tomorrow could be nearly as
warm, 12° C, but it may well be a grey
day with rain after sunset.
Yesterday was a successful day
even if I didn't really achieve much.
As I mentioned yesterday, one of the
things I wanted to do yesterday was to
go shopping in Tesco. It was useful on
two counts. The most obvious was to
buy new supplies of food. The less
obvious was that it was a chance to
"taste" the weather. It was bright,
but it seemed to feel very chilly, and
that put me off going for a walk in
the park later.
My intention, when going to
Tesco was to buy only sensible stuff,
and on the whole, that is what I did.
I did buy a few things that are not
ideal, like crisps, but I resisted
having any yesterday, and I hope to
save them for some sort of special
occasion....or something like that.
After succeeding in my reduced eating
on Sunday, where I just had breakfast
and a light dinner, I embarked on a
plan I mentioned recently, or cutting
my food intake in two.
Yesterday I had just 1.5 bowls
of noodles for breakfast. I was going
to have just one, but I had two small
(60gm) packets of "curry" flavoured
noodles, and they are pretty horrible.
I discarded the curry soup base
packet, and added half the noodles to
a better flavoured pack of instant
noodles. I hardly noticed a lack of
taste because of the added noodles.
For my lunch I had just one can of
soup-like Irish stew. That Irish stew
is a good eat, and it's sugar content
is very low.
The one bit of hard work I did
yesterday was some laundry. It was
going to be just a couple of t-shirts
(one white, and the other blue) plus a
light blue pair of underpants. I also
wanted to wash a hand towel from the
kitchen. I decided that the hand towel
should be washed separately because,
to use a word popular with Jodie,
"minging" ! My idea was that after
washing that towel in bio detergent I
would rinse it once or two before
putting it in with the rinsing of the
t-shirts. It was a fine idea only
spoiled by the fact that the towel
needed loads of rinsing before the
rinse water started to approach
getting clear. I stopped and started
that job a few times before I got
everything hanging up to dry.
That leaves quite a few hours
undescribed, and many of them were
filled in by reading. It would
actually be after dinner and a bit of
TV that I read the last page of the
book. Today I start reading a new book
- Isaac Asimov's "Enigma". My dinner
was also a very safe, and rather good
meal. It was two skinless/boneless
chicken thighs that I diced before
cooking them in chicken stock and
other spices before adding a lot of
cabbage, and giving it another 9
minutes in the microwave. It was
surprisingly good.
As I mentioned above, I watched
a bit of TV before going to bed to
finish reading my book. It was about
9pm when I finished the book. I turned
out the light, turned over,
and.....nothing happened. It seemed I
wasn't ready for sleep, and so I got
up again, and did a bit of research.
By chance I stumbled on something
interesting.
I like Lord Algea, but I have
only seen them cramped in the corner
of a pub. It would be great to see
them on a big stage with (hopefully)
some good lighting. The last time I
went to The Underword, in Camden, was
to see Kayak, and it was a great
event. Kayak, as I think I mentioned
last week, are back in London in May,
but when I checked the venue, the
Islington Halls they said they were
doing the full Covid passport
rigmarole, and that put me right off
(as well as the ticket price). The
Underworld say they have no covid
restrictions. The only things for me
to overcome are to have the energy and
inclination to go out late, and to be
able to travel on the tube without a
mask.
Before coming to the
subject of sleep, here's a couple
of snaps of the baskets hanging on
the fence in my back garden. It
looks like I will very soon get
some colour in my back garden. I
must admit I can't remember what I
put in these baskets, but I think
it was a mix of dwarf and full
sized crocuses, and dwarf tulips.
You might notice in the top
picture that one plant seems to
have forced it's way through the
plastic liner, and is growing out
of the right hand side of the
basket.
This is how the sky looked
at 2pm yesterday - a full hour
after the weather forecast's
curfew of 1pm. It was still almost
this good at 3pm if I recall
correctly. You might also note how
the sun is hitting the back fence.
It is going to take at least
another month before the sun is
high enough to reach the bottom of
the fence.
Back to the story of
sleeping - or lack of it. While I
was up, and doing research on the
internet, I had a couple of large
whiskies. I was back in bed at
about 11.30pm, and I was probably
asleep before midnight. I seemed
to wake up a lot in the night, and
it was one of those occasions
where you only realise that you
have been sleeping when waking up
again. I can remember a few times
when I thought I would never get
back to sleep again, and then
notice a couple of hours had
passed on the clock. At 7am it
seemed it was time to get up.
Maybe the days now getting longer
have reduced my appetite for sleep
to less than 8 hours now.
This morning, thanks to how
I controlled my eating, my blood
glucose has dropped to a low not
seen in years. It was 7.2mmol/l -
down from 7.3mmol/l yesterday
morning. The interesting thing
about 7.2mmol/l is that it is
considered the upper limit for non
diabetics, although the way it is
measured has to follow protocols
that I didn't. If I can do today,
what I did yesterday, I might even
get it a bit lower still.
As I write these words the
sky seems to be full of clouds,
and the sun is nowhere to be seen.
Assuming it brightens up again, I
think I want to go for a walk in
the park today. That could either
help my blood glucose drop a bit
extra, or I could be so hungry
after a 3+ mile walk that I will
come home and spoil everything. If
I don't go for a walk I might
possibly do some gardening
instead. I have to admit that I
really do need to do some
gardening of I want my garden to
look anywhere near what I dream of
it looking like.
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